NCJ Number
197325
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 47 Issue: 5 Dated: September 2002 Pages: 1022-1024
Date Published
September 2002
Length
3 pages
Annotation
An athlete who had tested positive for nandrolon in a urine sample purported to be his requested the authors to perform DNA investigations on the questioned urine sample and compare these to a fresh blood sample taken from the athlete, so as to detect or rule out manipulation and/or switching of the samples.
Abstract
The urine sample had been collected 9 months prior to the DNA analysis and had been stored at four degrees centigrade. DNA extraction of the blood and urine samples was performed on different days to avoid cross-contamination. In a first approach, nuclear DNA systems that were investigated failed, with the exception of the Amelogenin system. Due to the high copy number of mitochondrial DNA molecules and the robustness of the mitochondrial genome, researchers investigated the hypervariable regions I (HVR I) and (HVR II) regions of mitochondrial DNA and obtained reproducible and clear sequencing results for both the blood and the urine samples. Due to the identical sequences, the urine and blood samples could not be excluded as potentially originating from the same individual or an individual with the same maternal lineage. The researchers concluded that although mitochondrial DNA analysis is less discriminating than short tandem repeat (STR) typing, the application of this method can be a useful tool for investigating urine samples in order to detect possible manipulation and verification of mixed urine samples in cases in which STR analysis fails. 1 table and 10 references